Discuss the possible changes to the membership of the house of Lords

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Discuss the possible changes to the membership of the house of Lords

Currently there is 713 members of the House of Lords, 92 which are hereditary Peers, 26 Bishops and Archbishops while party member numbers fluctuate and the cross benchers which have no party affiliation. There is no upper limit to the number of members becoming Lords. Each main British party has their own leader and front bench departmental speaker which help organize the business of the House, the current leader of the house is Prime minister Tony Blair. Also the House has a Lord chancellor speaker of the house, though he has no power to control procedures. The House has already performed a number of Reforms, to reduce the number of Hereditary peers. Before the 1958 Life Peerages Act there were 810 hereditary peers, which went down to 759 in the period leading up to the House of Lords Act, where all except 92 hereditary peers rights to sit and vote in the House was removed, though the intentions initially were to abolish the right of hereditary peers completely. The government has announced its second stage of reform with main proposals such as the last number of hereditary peers would be removed, while the House only consist of 600 Members known as "members of the Lords" each serving a 5 to 15 year term. The number of party representatives would reflect the party balance at the last general election, which would mean right now Labour would have a great majority of Mls , except for the 20% of Mls who would be selected by am independent Appointments commissions due to them being non aligned with any party, though the final say would not go to the Appointments commissions but to the Political parties. 20% of the Mls would be elected by proportional representation in their regional constitutions. The power this would give the political parties over nominations for appointed members created a great diversity of opinions as Mps felt that this would reduce the House of Commons former dominance over the House of Lords.
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How affective is the House of Lords as a check on the House of Commons and a contributor to British Dominance?

Over all I do not feel that the House of Lords is very affective as a check on the House of Commons as they can not over ride anything the House of Commons decides but can only delay the issue, and offer different perspective in chance of the House changing their mind. However the House of Lords do have a real opportunity to become a more effective and efficient guardian against the elected dictatorship Labour has ...

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